They still exist!

By the time I started to pay attention to the trucks on the road around me most of the Autocars like this one were gone. Even though I missed their “golden years” I do have fond memories of trucks like the one below as they pulled away from the main DPW garage, engines screaming the entire way up Midler Ave. They were loud, rusty, and positively huge looking when viewed from the back seat of my grandmothers car. Trucks like this Autocar were the model that provided the inspiration for most of my childhood drawings, especially the yellow and blue paint scheme.

Former Syracuse DPW Autocar – Click to Enlarge

This former snow fighter now rests on the back of an equally decrepit lowboy. The dump body is gone but the equipment for the wing plow still remains. I would love to grab more photos of this truck but it hides in a very crowded junkyard with numerous hunks of steel designed to keep people out. For an idea of what this truck looked like check out this tow truck still used by the Syracuse DPW by clicking here.